Philips 42PF9831 LCD TV

Philips 42PF9831 LCD TV

Sudeep Naik, Oct 23, 2006 1400 hrs IST

The Philips 42-inch LCD TV is a beast that will surely grip the mind of any sane man.

Great build quality, 42-inch screen, Ambilight, Pixelplus, ClearLCD, DNM, Impressive picture and sound quality, High feel-good factor.

Too big and heavy for a 42-inch TV, No 1080p support, Very expensive.

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What's new?

Some of the unique features of the Philips TV are the Ambilight and Pixel Plus technology. Let's see what they do for you.

Ambilight

Ambilight (Ambient Lighting Technology) is a feature invented by Philips Electronics, generating light effects around the TV that matches the video content. The Ambilight Surround consists of four fluorescent bulbs framing the television, which light up when you're watching TV. As the tones on the screen change, so do the lights around all four edges of the set and best of all, these lights reflect off the walls giving your living room a surreal look and feel.

The effect, the company claims, is a larger virtual screen and a more immersive viewing experience. In addition, it reduces the strain on the eyes of the viewers.

Ambilight has advanced to level 4 in 2006. Ambilight 4 provides a four-channel (left, right, top, and bottom) adaptation of colors correlated to the colors shown in the picture, whereas the earlier Ambilight television simultaneously adapts colors on 2 sides (mono.)

It's a matter of personal taste whether you really find it to be an enhancing experience or just a marketing gimmick. Well, I'm sure the picture you see in this section will do the talking. For us, we loved the Ambilight feature; more than anything else, it did create a neat ambiance with an immersive feel.

The use of Ambilight may improve your viewing experience, but what about the picture quality itself? The use of Ambilight isn't the only USP here; this beast also features Pixel Plus.

Pixelplus

Pixelplus or Pixel Plus is a proprietary digital filter image processing technology developed by Philips, which they claim, "enhances" the display of analogue broadcast signals on their LCD TVs.

It interpolates the broadcast signal to increase the picture size by one third, from 625 lines to 833 lines. It also "doubles" the horizontal resolution, although each horizontal line is analogue.

Other features that may be unique to Pixelplus include motion interpolation, a processing technique that introduces (or reintroduces) a higher rate of motion into the video.

This can create an effect of 50 frames per second where 25 existed or 60 where 30 existed or 60 where 24 existed. Typically, this is used for film-based material that used to be originally delivered in 24 or 25 frames per second, whereas the display is capable of far more fluid, realistic motion.

In 2005, Pixelplus 2 was launched. This version was the first to be able to perform motion reinterpolation on 480p and 576p material.

In 2006, Pixelplus 3 was launched. This version was the first to be able to perform motion reinterpolation on 720p and 1080i material.